What to do When You are Overwhelmed by the News
It is good for us to stay informed about what in going on in our country and the world. It is good to look to the news (not the Entertainment section, but actual news) and see what is going on in the world, but sometimes it can be overwhelming. I remember last year when I was reading about the scourge of ISIS, and I found an article about how 12 year-old girls were being sold into slavery and were made to do whatever the person who bought them wanted. I immediately felt a surge of anger in the pit of my stomach and wanted to rush to the Middle East and rescue them, but I could not fill that desire. I was a college student at my desk without any idea how to rescue them.
Pray
Reading the news and staying informed can be overwhelming, so what can we do to combat that feeling of helplessness we get when we hear about travesties and cannot provide an immediate solution? The best thing we can do is annoyingly simple: pray. When we pray, we put the situation in God’s hands, and let’s face it; His hands are much more skilled than ours. He will make sure that all things work for the better. Sure, we may want to go kicking down doors, guns blazing and rescuing everyone. We may want to start an organization that raises money for relief efforts. We may want to stumble onto super powers and save the day (I daydream about this all the time). However, if we don’t pray, these efforts are wasted, since we could have been placing the situation in the control of someone infinitely better equipped to handle the situation.
In the Book of Exodus, while Moses and the Israelites are fleeing Egypt, the Israelite people see the Egyptians pursuing them. They are sandwiched between an army and the Red Sea with seemingly nowhere to go. The people are freaking out, feeling helpless and wondering what to do, when Moses says: "Do not fear! Stand your ground and see the victory the LORD will win for you today. For these Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you have only to keep still.” (Exodus 14:13-14) We must remember that the Lord will fight for us. All we have to do is be still and pray, and He will help.
Prayer and Action
When I say that all we need to do is be still and pray, I am not saying that doing something like organizing a group to raise awareness or raising money to help us a bad thing. Those are all good things. The person who actually goes in and rescues everyone has a cool job and is doing a good thing. If we do not pray though, we exclude God from the equation. It is as if a child sees a burning building and tells the fire department, “It’s okay; I’ve got this. You guys just hang back and watch.” It is ridiculous, but because we cannot always see God working in obvious ways, we forget that He is there, working, and waiting for us to ask Him for help.
Keep Praying
Now for the hardest part: If your prayers seem like they are going unanswered, be patient and keep praying. The word patient comes from the Latin patientia, literally meaning a “quality of suffering”. Patience is suffering, but Christ calls us to suffer. He calls us to His Cross and asks us to be there with Him, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him. Sometimes, the suffering takes the form of waiting. The way God works is not how we expect Him to work. He doesn’t carefully target lightning to remove threats. He doesn’t split the earth open to swallow up wrong doers. He works every situation for the betterment of everyone involved, including those who do wrong. It is like He is playing a game of chess and winning, but also saving as many pieces as He can, regardless of what side they are on. That is why we should trust in God to take care of things, because we see the need to only save the victims; God sees the need to save everyone.
Next time when you are looking at the news and thinking that the world is sinking like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, take a moment and entrust whatever situation is causing your heart to break into the hands of God, and trust that He will take care of it and everyone involved.
